Area schools fill teaching vacancies

Posted: Tuesday, September 26, 2000

By Janet Jones and Kevin ConnerStaff Writers

Area educators say finding teachers has grown more difficult -- in fact, into a nationwide struggle -- but for the most part their districts have been able to fill teaching vacancies in a timely manner.

The Clarke County School District had about 20 vacant teaching positions before the current school year began, district spokesman Mike Wooten said Monday. All but four of those positions were filled by regular classroom teachers before school started in August.

The four vacant positions were initially filled by long-term substitutes.

Since then, two of the positions have been filled by full-time teachers, and the remaining two positions should be filled by the substitutes currently in those slots, pending their successful completion of their teacher certification tests, according to Shirley Jaeger, the school district's personnel director.

''It's tough, I'll admit. We beat the bushes every year looking for good, qualified teachers,'' Wooten said. ''We've begun to be a little more aggressive in our search each year, recruiting more on college campuses and at job fairs and using the Internet. ... All things considered, however, this is not just an Athens problem or a Georgia problem -- this is a nationwide problem.''

Jaeger agrees.

''It's really hard to say if 1187 (House Bill 1187, the state education reform act) has had any impact on the teacher pool since it's only been in effect a few months. We do a good job of filling most of our teacher positions in Clarke County. I was recently at a meeting with human resources directors from school districts in Northeast Georgia and some school systems still have 50 to 150 vacancies right now,'' Jaeger said.

Wooten said it is difficult to tell if the education reform bill has made the teacher shortage problem worse in Clarke schools.

''Not only here but across the state and across the nation people have had a hard time finding teachers. Has the education reform bill made it worse? I don't think we've noticed the (shortage situation) being any worse this year than years before,'' he said.

In the Barrow County school system, most paraprofessionals -- also known as teacher's aides -- have been eliminated in elementary grades to comply with state funding changes in the recently adopted reform package. The Oconee County school system had planned to have 95 paraprofessionals in classrooms this year, but has scaled back, allowing 19 of those positions to be lost through attrition.

Both the Barrow County and Madison County school systems have struggled to meet the reform bill's reduced class size requirements and new teaching positions. Barrow County is still seeking three elementary-level teachers and Madison County is looking for one.

''We've had a very difficult time,'' said Roy Morgan, assistant superintendent of Barrow County schools. ''We've had trouble finding teachers to fill special education, science, math, early childhood education, middle school and high school positions. And for the first time ever, we've had difficulty filling the early childhood positions.''

Jackson County School Superintendent Andy Byers said his school system has filled all new positions mandated by the reform bill, but also said finding teachers in Georgia is no easy task, given the state's rapidly growing student population.

''Education reform is certainly a variable there, but it's just one of the issues that's affecting it (a statewide difficulty in finding teachers),'' he said. ''Overall, I think there are school systems in the state that would be having trouble filling their positions even without the reform measures.''

Doug Eza, director of operations for Oconee schools, said his school system didn't have any trouble filling required positions for this school year. But he said there could be problems within the next 10 years due to student population growth, a large number of teachers approaching retirement age and the availability of high paying private-sector jobs.

''The governor's reform bill is an easy target,'' he said. ''There are many other forces involved and when you look at all those together they have far greater impact than the reform bill.''